44 Catalogue Raisonné. 
France and Great Britain to the discovery of the steam engine. Had 
this notice originated with the Americans, we should have been less sur- 
prised, and were therefore not sorry to see the author, Mr. Arago, an- 
swered in a most talented manner in the Foreign Quarterly Review of 
Treuttel and Wurtz. The present essay, consisting of a brief exposition 
of every known step in the application of elastic vapour to the produc- 
tion of motive powers, treats the subject even in a still more masterly 
manner. On such a subject, we shall always keep in mind the expres- 
sion of some of Mr. A.’s contemporaries, members of the Board of Lon- 
gitude of France. Some researches having detained us rather a fa- 
tiguing length of time in the observatory, at a period when a question on 
magnetism had caused some little discussion between one of our 
hilosophers and that patriarchal grumbler, they seemed inclined to re- 
er to that cause the fact of our not having asked their assistance, con-~ 
cluding their kind offer by the remark, ‘*‘ Remember Mr. Arago is not 
the only man of science here,”—a fact to which we could bear sufficient 
testimony.—Quarierly Journal of Science, No. X. p. 332. 
On Cavities containing Fluids in Rock Sait. By Wittiam Nicon, Hse. 
Lecturer on Natural Philosophy. 
Globules of air, and fluids crystallizing by heat, and giving precipitates when 
tested with solutions of nitrate of silver, oxalate of ammonia, and carbo- 
nate of potash, were found by this gentleman in the transparent and 
snow white varieties of the rock salt of Cheshire.—Hdin. Phil. Journ. 
No. XIII. p. 111. 
On the Atomic Constitution of the Cyanide of Mercury. By J. F. W. Jonn- 
ston, M.A. 
From this analysis, Mr. Johnston concludes that the salt is a bi-cyanide ; 
that 100 grains of the salt give off by heat about 31 cubic inches of cy- 
anogen : and thirdly, that what is wanting to make up the whole two 
atoms of cyanogen is converted into a blueish carbonaceous substance, 
consisting of carbon and azote in equal propertions.—£din. Journ. of 
Science, No. I. p. 119. 
Analysis of the Water of a Spring in the Estate of Fordel near Inverkeithing, 
1629. By the REv. WILLIAM ROBERTSON, JUN. 
The spring issues from that member of the coal formation which rests upon 
mountain limestone. Its waters which deliver bubbles of gas, princi- 
ally nitrogen, do not contain much saline ingredients, carbonates of 
me and magnesia predominating, with a considerable proportion of the 
muriates of magnesia and potash ; sulphate of magnesia, and traces of 
the carbonates, the muriates, and the protoxides of iron: no traces of 
iodine.—Edin. Phil. Journ. No. XIII. p. 99. 
Description d’un nouvel os de la face chez Vhomme. Par M. EMMANUEL 
Rousseau, D.M. Préparateur des travaux anatomiques du Jardin du Roi, — 
&e. &c. 
M. Rousseau proclaims the discovery of a new centre of ossification in the 
face of man. As an additional bone, which he names the external lach- 
rymal, or petit unguis, according to the terminology of Boyer, it is situated 
at the external and inferior part of the grand unguis, (lachrymal bone.) 
Out of ten individuals, it has occurred five or six times. Anxious to as- 
certain the accuracy of M. Rousseau’s discovery, we have examined a 
large series of crania, and should be inclined to think that a new form 
had led him to mistake that supernumerary little bone, mentioned by 
Beclard as frequently connected by suture with the superior maxillary, 
had the author not given a figure of a cranium wherein both the bones 
existmAnn. des Sciences Naturelles, May 1829. . 

